QUINTON

He knew better.

Quinton Reid sighed, closing his pale wooden door behind him with a soft click! and running a hand through his hair.

There was no good reason for him to be at the office just after midnight. No excuse he could tell himself so he could sleep better when this was all said and done.

The plausible deniability he usually clung to so desperately had dissolved completely the moment he took out his keys and came in through the back.

Quin was checking up on the Cervena mortgage application. Because, well…of course he was. He was bored, and lonely, and nosy. So he did what he did best — falling back into old habits, being diverted by someone interesting and dangerous so he didn't have to be alone with his thoughts.

Again.

Quin pulled up his one of the spare laptops they delegated for the tellers and connected it to the ethernet, signing into the back-end software with the temporary ID they’d assigned for the branch manager when he locked himself out of his account last week.

This wasn’t something he could pretend was an accident. There was deliberation in every action he took. Steps to cover his tracks. Culpability. Premeditation.

Quin hit LOGIN and sighed again.

He was here late because he didn’t want Ryan to catch him. He’d come in through the back because the cameras were out, and he didn’t need to swipe his keycard if he entered through the garage. He was using the temporary credentials because he didn’t want management knowing he’d viewed the documents when they were supposed to be out of his hands. He’d left his own work laptop at home, with his cell phone, conveniently giving him an alibi if he was asked.

It was deliberate, and it was going to get Quin in trouble.

If not with his superiors, then at the very least with the kind of people he would be better off leaving alone. The sort of people he’d sworn off of years ago.

Anyone with eyes could tell that someone like Marika Cervena was bad news.

Quin couldn’t quite describe what it was about her, but he knew. The same way he always knew, with these sorts of people. The best he could describe it, it was the coldness behind her eyes, and the way her words cut, just so, when she spoke.

Someone like her grew up in a den of wolves. She moved through life with her claws out and ready to bite. All of the most interesting people always did.

You had to, when you had something to hide.

He pulled up her application again, scanning the references, the credit report, the other information she’d entered. He should’ve done it all one more time, back when he had the paper copies.

Instead, he was doing it now.

Clean. Clean, clean, clean!

What was he missing? The mystery of it all made him want to clench his fists until the sharp corners of his short nails made him bleed.

Except…Quin heard the inexplicable sound of something being jostled.

Three long, hard, drawn out slams! rang through the office with an echo so loud and terrifying Quin though he would die from the fear alone.

For a moment in time, he was paralyzed.

Even back when he’d been his most brazen, he’d never been in real danger. In his college years he had been able to hide behind his family’s wealth and notoriety. He’d meddled in the sorts of problems that felt petty in comparison. Inconsequential.

A fine, or a restraining order — not a death sentence.

Whoever was breaking in right now didn’t sound inconsequential. They sounded professional.

Quin shut the laptop and scambled to flip off the lights, slamming the switch down and diving beneath his desk.

The seconds between footsteps were agonizing. He thought he could hear his own heartbeat as he waited, the warm press of the laptop battery somehow both searing and grounding against his chest.

Anywhere else, Quin wanted to say out loud. Go anywhere else in the building. Just not this office.

He should have known better.

Where else would they be going? No one else here did anything even remotely interesting enough to attract the interest of someone with the skill-set to break into a bank, even one as small as this.

The door to his office, unlocked thanks to his stupid machinations about figuring out the Cervena mortgage, creaked open.

“You can come out, Mr. Reid.”

The voice was low, with an accent that was just barely there, and only if you squinted. 

Quin flattened himself against the underside of his desk.

“It would be better if you would come out without a fight.” A second voice. Quin squeeze his eyes shut and staved off the urge to let out a quiet string of curses. “We are already all in deep shit.”

They were testing them. They had to be.

But then the slow, methodical sound of footsteps began again. Quin cracked his eyes open, and a pair of pale, narrow eyes looked down at him from over his worktop.

Quin’s blood ran cold. He thought perhaps his heart stopped.

“Quinton Reid,” the man said. His face was not the forgiving sort. “I do not have the kind of patience you may be hoping for. I suggest you come with us.”